At the time, White called the entire episode a “tragic accident” and the badly decomposed condition of Vicky Wall’s body left investigators with no way of proving exactly how she met her demise.

Court documents show that’s what led to White, a 37-year-old Galesburg resident at the time, avoiding a murder rap. Instead, he pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter, landing him in a prison until 2007.

He ended up serving more than 12 years in prison, the maximum sentence after factoring in time off for good behavior.

“When you think about proving homicide, the very first thing you have to prove is that someone died by criminal means and when you can’t say how someone died, how do you take that next step and say it must have been by criminal means,” said Kalamazoo County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Carrie Klein who was assigned to the White case in 1995.

Now, more than five years after he was released from prison in Wall’s death, White has been charged with murder in the beating and strangulation of 24-year-old Rebekah Gay, who was a neighbor of White’s in the Mount Pleasant trailer park where they both lived.

Gay, the mother of a 3-year-old boy, was reported missing Wednesday after she didn’t show up for work.

White told investigators he had been thinking about killing Gay for about two weeks before he entered her trailer early Wednesday, hit her over the head with a rubber mallet and strangled her with a zip tie before undressing her and disposing of her body.

In the Kalamazoo County case, White was initially charged with open murder in connection with Wall’s death. At the time, Kalamazoo County sheriff’s investigators alleged White strangled Wall and left her body in a wooded area in the 7400 block of East H Avenue.

Rebekah Gay's body was found in a ditch not far from her home in Isabella County.

The case marked the second time White had drawn the attention of police. In 1981, he was convicted of assault with intent to commit murder in the stabbing of a 17-year-old woman in Calhoun County.

The woman survived the incident and Michigan Department of Corrections spokesman Russ Marlan said White was sentenced to 5 to 10 years in prison for the assault.

Marlan said MDOC records say White choked the teen in the basement of his home, threw her to the ground and then stabbed her in the chest and back with a hunting knife. He then stopped the assault, summoned his wife and police were called.

MDOC records show that White only served prison time in the case until 1983 because his sentence was overturned on appeal and he was re-sentenced to probation on a charge of assault with intent to commit great bodily harm less than murder and released from prison.

Later, in the 1994 case in Kalamazoo County, White became a suspect in Wall’s killing after police recovered Wall’s vehicle in the Meijer parking lot on Gull Road, court documents show.

Surveillance footage from the store’s parking lot showed Wall getting in to White’s truck in the early hours of July 11, 1994, the last day Wall was seen alive.

White also later told police that he was married and having an affair with Wall, whom he worked with at a company in Oshtemo Township.

Wall’s nude, badly decomposed body was found in late August 1994 off East H Avenue.

A turquoise-colored T-shirt and bra were wrapped around Wall’s neck when she was found, court documents show.

Court documents also say that Wall and White, “had a tumultuous relationship” and that shortly before her death, Wall described an incident during which White “had gotten angry with her, choked her and threatened to kill her.”

However, a pathologist who testified at a probable-cause hearing for White in 1995, said he concluded that Wall’s death was a homicide but was not able to pinpoint the cause of her death because of the decomposed state of the body.

“Defendant was responsible for the deterioration of Vicky Wall’s body, by leaving her in the woods,” prosecutors said in court documents. “He was the last one to see her alive.

“While Defendant admitted ‘this was a truly tragic accident’ that was unintentional, he benefited most from the pathologist’s inability to discover an exact cause of death.”

In the end, Kalamazoo County Circuit Judge John Foley sentenced White in May 1995 to 8 to 15 years in prison with credit for 295 days served.

When he sent White to prison, court records show Foley was concerned about the then 38-year-old’s mental health.

“In your unstable condition, I am recommending to the Department of Corrections that before you are placed on parole they carefully review your case and your mental condition,” Foley said at the sentencing hearing. “I recommend to the Department of Corrections that you receive mental health therapy.

“I further recommend (MDOC) that they carefully review your case you’re your mental condition before you are released on parole.”

MDOC records show White was never paroled. Instead, he was released from prison in February 2007 after serving his full sentence, which included time off for good behavior, MDOC spokesman Russ Marlan said.

“(Prosecutors), as well as the (parole) board, felt this prisoner … was someone who should not be released so we held him every day we could and when he was released we notified law enforcement where he was,” Marlan said.

“… We have no authority or control over him once that sentence expires and that’s what happened,” Marlan added.